The Moz Blog

The Dark Side of Wikipedia

Biased manipulation runs wild on Wikipedia, and the extent to which it influences the pages of that site will probably never be known. In the field of SEO, where every link counts, Wikipedia's reference links at the bottom of articles and their external links in the body text of articles were once considered search engine ranking gold. Early this year, Wikipedia moved to institute nofollow on all outbound links, and many presumed the controversy would die there. It hasn't.

I think the best way I can illustrate this massive problem is to attack the most common questions that come up around Wiki-hacking (yes, I'm inventing a moniker so I don't have to say "editing Wikipedia from a biased perspective in inaccurate, misleading or mis-representational ways" every time). Those who frequent Wikipedia would probably consider these edits to be "vandalism," but that's a very inaccurate representation of the actions that are actually happening. Vandalism refers to intentional destruction or damage of property - in the offline world, think graffiti or bricks through a window. These Wikipedia edits are, primarily, intended never to be detected by other Wikipedia editors or the outside world - a better analogy might be the subtle manipulation of a news report to slant in favor of a political party or candidate.

Some major questions and issues:

Why Edit Wikipedia Pages if There's No Link Juice?

Reputation Management - if Wikipedia has bad things to say about a topic, there will almost certainly be someone who wishes to see that information removed.

Link Traffic - Wikipedia articles, due to their phenomenal overrepresentation in search engines, can drive a remarkable amount of traffic, so many wiki-hacks are simply attempts to boost click-throughs

Promotion - If you were a cellphone company, you might seriously consider editing the Wiki article on cellphone retailers, possibly adding a link to a list of "highest rated" stores by consumers according to a bogus study you host on your site (or another site) and then copying that list in short-format on the Wikipedia entry. Other promotional tactics are less obvious, but often more difficult to identify. And, yes, that story is a modified version of a true instance of Wiki-promotion.

To Spite - If your competitor is ranking ahead of you on Google, or kicking you around in sales, you might find that Wikipedia is an excellent place to create a page on their company and detail the long list of terrible misdeeds they've committed. What's great (or horrible) about this practice is that generally, they'll be the ones who later come in and look like spammers for erasing the content or trying to have it removed, which actually helps to bolster the veracity of information in the eyes of other editors or administrators. It's a dirty but highly effective tactic to leverage against an opponent. I've even heard a story about using this technique for blackmailing the company referenced in the negative article, and pretending to "switch sides" in the editorial debate on the talk page once the money had been paid (it's DMOZ all over again!).

For Link Juice - Wait, I thought there was no link juice on Wikipedia... Well, not directly. But, Wikipedia is such a reference resource that if your site earns links on popular pages, you'll find that those links find their way into forums, blog posts, articles, and journalistic publications more often than not. This is probably one of the most clever ways to use Wikipedia, because you'll need to link to something worthy of being spread, anyway, which probably means that even a heavy-handed Wiki-editor won't remove it, as it's typically relevant enough and interesting enough to belong there. One might even argue that this isn't Wiki-Hacking at all (perhaps it's the linkbait of Wikipedia?).

To Earn Credit - The Wikipedia hierarchy rewards frequent, positive edits, and for many Wiki-hackers this is a great way to build up a solid, respectable-looking profile and potentially even be rewarded with administrator status.

Wiki-Jacking - Since I've written about this topic previously, I won't cover it again in-depth.

How Do Malicious Edits Happen?

Anonymously - As of now, users can still make edits anonymously without logging in. Granted, Wikipedia will record your IP address, but you don't have to provide any personal information (not even fake stuff).

Through Proxies - When one anonymous account just won't do, or you don't want the anonymous account to have any connection to your other account(s), using a proxy IP address lets you connect through to Wikipedia largely undetected (so long as the proxy provides solid anonymity).

Through Trusted Accounts - For the more experienced Wiki-Hackers, a trusted account is a must have. Trusted accounts that make dozens of edits each day are much less likely to be accused of manipulation or have their content modified by another editor, even if complaints arise.

Via Multiple Accounts with History - The savviest of Wiki-Hackers I've talked to runs more than a dozen unique, trusted accounts with positive history, and can use these

What are Some of the Best/Worst Stories I've Heard?

The Sock Puppet Betrayer - This is second-hand, so the details might be fuzzy, but the basic approach was sheer genius. Basically, this Wiki-Hacker created several accounts on different IPs, then vandalized a number of pages, mostly small and under-the-radar, appearing to look like a competitor (adding links, references, promotional content, etc). He then "investigated" these pages through his trusted account, "found" the "spammers," removed their content, and was praised by some other community editors. Later, he used the newfound trust to create subtle, but effective references for his own client.

The Account Buyer - Supposedly, this fellow has been tracking down Wikipedia editors and offering to buy their account user names and passwords for the "trust" they've earned. According to him, he's only got 4 so far, but these have all been used effectively to help create and then "back up" favorable changes to a number of pages in a specific vertical.

The Talker - One of the smartest Wiki-Hackers, in my opinion, is barely an editor of content at all, but simply uses a well-liked editorial account on Talk Pages, helping to sway the discussion in favor of keeping/removing links & content. On rare occasion, rather than actually making changes, the Talker will simply suggest that certain edits be made, then use a secondary or anonymous account to complete them if there's no pushback.

The Bad Mouther - This particular Wiki Hacker got caught by another editor and in order to save himself, dug through every edit his accuser had ever made, and ended up being able to keep not only his account, but his edits by making it appear that the accuser was actually an "SEO," whose perspective and judgment were biased.

Why Don't Administrators Stop this Behavior?

They do, actually. You can see this popular project page called WikiProject Spam, where a "spamstar of glory" (yes, seriously) is awarded for stopping spammers on Wikipedia. A fairly immense to-do list exists on this page, and it's actually one of the Wiki-Hackers' most feared pages. Unfortunately, it's also a tool - Wiki-Hackers who want information removed or who want to build up the "trust" of their own accounts will actually become spam investigators and reporters. One of the best ways to reach administrator level is actually to catch some of the "trusted" accounts that are actually other Wiki-Hackers, and thus the community of Wiki-Hackers is not on particularly good terms with one another. Turning in other hackers puts you above suspicion in a way that few other actions on Wikipedia can, and thus, it's one of the holy grails of the infiltrator-style hackers.

How do You Know All This, Rand?

Two ways, really. First, I've played around first-hand with some of the pages with Wikipedia. In fact, prior to the "nofollow" implementation on links, I personally had a few editorial accounts through proxy IP addresses, though I probably haven't actively edited Wikipedia pages in the last 9 months. Instead, I've been connecting over email and in-person with a lot of folks who run reputation management and link building campaigns that do leverage Wikipedia. The number of stories, depth of detail, and actual examples (which I obviously can't share without betraying a lot of trust), including the stories I've recounted above, paint a fairly dark picture of what's actually happening at Wikipedia.

Granted, because of my profession, I'm almost certainly getting an overrepresentation of the more manipulative aspects of what happens on Wikipedia. It's only natural. While lots of experienced Wiki-Hackers love to share their favorite stories of manipulating the site, very few of the truly quality editors are A) ever going to meet me at a party or go get some drinks with me at a conference bar, or B) boast about the terrific article they created about 70s-style tube socks as fashion accessories.

Please do note that the specific stories I've recounted above have had details removed or even slightly modified to keep the identities of my sources anonymous. A couple, as I noted, are second-hand, as well, so I'm guessing some details may be missing. However, even with the details missing, you can still get a sense of the tactics for manipulation and the extent to which people are willing to go to in order to change Wikipedia in their favor.

I just spent 50 minutes playing cat and mouse with a vandal, and WP:AIV still hasn't acted on my block request. I guess its time to ask for the tools. What do you think? Jehochman (talk/contrib) 04:45, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Done, 24 hour block. Sometimes it feels good to have the tools. Thanks for the heads up. Cheers, DurovaCharge! 04:48, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I think we are dealing with a black hat SEO who may be using some sort of script. I see a pattern in the edits. My suspicion is that they want one specific reference gone, and are attacking all of them to create confusion. Can we semi-protect the targeted articles, starting with Traffic Power? Jehochman (talk/contrib) 05:04, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Am I caught up on the blocks? Keep me apprised; I'm working on a complex investigation with another editor atm. DurovaCharge! 05:05, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Blocks are good. Here are the targeted articles. I think he'll be back soon. Jehochman (talk/contrib) 05:11, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Obviously, this example above is a very amateur attempt, and Jon & Durova are all over it. Professional-level Wiki-Hacking is much more difficult to rat out.

The most frustrating part for Wikipedians has to be that they themselves receive no financial reward for their efforts, yet their opposition, the Wiki-Hackers, benefit monetarily and directly when they have success penetrating the spam police.

Do all of these Wiki-Wars Really Matter?

The most accurate answer is probably "it depends." It's very hard to gauge how much the public trusts information on Wikipedia. My gut tells me that, sadly, a lot of people simply accept whatever Wikipedia says without checking real sources of information (yes, I'm saying that Wikipedia by its very nature is untrustworthy, even if 95%+ of the information there is factual, which is probably a big stretch). However, I can say with some certainty that businesses and individuals get a great deal of value and suffer a great deal of loss when Wikipedia contains positive/negative information about them (very similar to Google or other search engines). Thus, a secondary "black" market will always exist to exploit the site and attempt to change information. Even if Wikipedia went into immediate lockdown mode, there would be auctions for trusted editorial accounts, devious manipulation, and, probably, an even higher price on all of the Wiki-Hacking style activities.

There's no real solution to the cat-and-mouse game, unless Jimbo wants to turn Wikipedia into some sort of Mahalo-like resource, where only those invited can edit (and even then, I'm guessing it will just mean higher prices, not an end to hacking).

p.s. Yes, the nofollows on all links to Wikipedia are intentionally "nofollowed." Someone should create a blog plug-in to auto-nofollow Wikipedia links so the site stops ranking atop every query in existence.

p.p.s. None of the content in this post is intended to suggest that I don't respect the project, its aims, or the lofty aspirations of many of the hardworking people trying to make it a good resource. In fact, I believe quite the opposite - that folks like Durova, in particular, and others like here have a noble, self-sacrificing streak that's both rare and praise-worthy. But, depending on your view of Wikipedia and black/gray hat social media practices as a whole, you might find some of her opponents equally admirable, or at least, impressively creative.

97 Comments

I would keep in mind that much as the vast majority of Google users do not know or care about SEO, the same is true of Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is an enormously important resource to tens of millions of people.

That there are attempts to manipulate it is just a measure of their success. They are indeed a resource, for good reason, they are a massively useful place to people who are trying to learn.

Bear with me as I say this, but the truth is that I am disturbed when you call for a nofollow plug. Wait, don't get mad yet...

To have such an enormous amount of information online in so many languages is massively important for education all over the world.

For every entry that somehow promotes a product, there are probably ten thousand that don't.

As someone who didn't have the luxury of a public education, I am very concerned about the few options that people do have to attain one. Wikipedia is the best multi language tool for education that exists right now and I think that if mind power was put into the improvement of it, rather than the destruction of it, then it would become even more useful.

I completely understand the frustration we have (and I have too sometimes) with the blanket authority that is given to Wikipedia by Google. It does suck, and is often completely unfair.

The bigger picture (as my silly self sees it) is that in one tiny sector (SEO) there are alot of negative feelings for Wikipedia, but in the vast majority of users, there are mostly positive feelings.

If the only solution you see to our small (seo) sectors problems with it is to attempt to destroy Wikipedias usefulness, then I am sorry you feel that way. I disagree.

Wikipedia benefits tens of millions of people all over the world who are unable to have the education we get to have, perhaps there are better ways to look at this problem than to call for destructive and manipulative techniques (nofollow plugins, etc.) to be used against it.

This articles title "The Dark Side of Wikipedia" could easily be replaced with "The Dark Side of SEO".

Are we really going to try to destroy things, no matter how valuable they are to others, because they don't please or profit us personally?

I don't see anyone here trying to destroy Wikipedia. Rand is simply pointing out the inherent flaws in a system that is ripe for malicious intent.

If anything, I think this post brings a necessary awareness to a pervasive problem. If that serves as a catalyst for Wikipedia to take steps to improve the system and in the process, the accuracy of the content, then those that count on it for education can be grateful that their education will be based on fact rather than fiction.

With all due respect, I wholeheartedly agree with the idea of an auto-no follow of blog Wikipedia links - not for personal profit reasons, but rather because of what I believe is fast becoming an undeserved monopoly for a questionable source among the top of the SERPs.

I also don't see this as a call for destructive techniques. If a blogger chooses to implement Wikipedia no-follow - are you suggesting he not have the freedom of choice to do so?

Furthermore, to suggest that Rand is calling on his members to implement destructive techniques is simply wrong.

As for "manipulative", are you suggesting that you don't engage in manipulative techniques? The very essence and success of a good SEO is based on some combination of skill in manipulation. Not necessarily unfair manipulation, but manipulation nonetheless. I would just be careful in passing judgement here.

Also, let's be honest - do you really believe that this would adversely impact these tens of millions you are referring to, that rely on Wikipedia for their education? If they're smart enough to operate a computer, surely they're smart enough to find Wikipedia by typing in the url. (Not that their SERP positions are going anywhere).

If anything, it would provide a greater variety of choices at the top of the SERPs, such as Britannica - and that would be a good thing.

I use my home IP address to post funny little comments on Wikipedia all the time. They get removed in about 5 days or so but it sure is fun to freak out family members. It usually goes a little something like this.

Me: Hey, you're linked to (or mantioned) on Wikipedia!

InternetChallengedFriendorRelative: Really? Where?

Me: Link or walk them through to the page

ICFR: Whoa! That's awesome.

Me: Holy cow, it just changed. Now look at it!

ICFR: How did that happen?

Me: I think someone might be watching you.

ICFR: Why?

Me: [after posting on wikipedia they are on the phone or chat] Because they just posted that you are currently [mention what they're doing].

Me: I have special login rights to most pages on the internet that allow me to change them at anytime.

ICFR: Whoa! That's cool.

I know it's mean, pompous, controlling, etc. but it is SOOO much fun to do to Internet Challenged Friends and Relatives. It helps make up for all the times you have to uninstall AdWare, Malware, Viruses, walk them through how to drag their start menu bar back to the bottom, etc.

So go have some fun . . . it's our right. ;-) Just use a computer, IP, and login that you don't care if Wikipedia ends up hating. ;-)

I figured I should probably clear up my position on Wikipedia as a whole, and explain why I have a general problem with the project.

I certainly appreciate the value that it can provide as an educational tool, but I also fear it greatly. If people ever started to trust the information from Wikipedia on a regular basis (and I think many already do), it could be incredibly dangerous for the fundamental distribution of knowledge. Why?

Because Wikipedia is almost never a primary source - it relies primarily on amateur editors to collect and harness other groups of information, and only in rare circumstances (like when an article is promoted to the homepage) is the editing process close to thorough enough to be considered accurate.

I love the idea of Wikipedia, but I also despise the fact that bloggers will quote it as fact or students will use it in papers or journalists will refer to it as though it has some element of democratic truth. The techniques described above are only the tip of the iceberg - in addition to biased manipulation, there's also accidental edits, incorrect data, bad sources, poor researching, trusting the words of an editor because they sound/appear plausible, etc.

Pat - First off, I love that I'm seeing you contribute at a really high level here in the comments. Maybe we should disagree more :) However, I'm a believer in single sources or at least sources where the creators can earn trust from readers and then spread that to their other work. The biggest problem with Wikipedia is the vast array of accuracy. For example, if you said "I've been reading a lot of material in the Washington Post, and it's a really great paper. I really trust those guys to tell me what's up in the world," that's entirely legitimate. But if you apply that same logic to Wikipedia, you NEVER KNOW who has actually created the work, who's edited it, whose biases are in it. You simply can't apply the same level of trust universally at Wikipedia that you do to any other publication.

I'm a big fan of being an information skeptic in general (YES! Even with what you read here on SEOmoz), but from what I've seen Wikipedia is creating a new world of problems by fostering trust in content where there should be questioning and researching and double-checking.

"I love the idea of Wikipedia, but I also despite the fact that bloggers will quote it as fact or students will use it in papers or journalists will refer to it as though it has some element of democratic truth."

I'm not going to rush to the defense of Wikipedia, but I have to disagree, at least in theory, about a crowd-based primary source vs. a single-author source. We've seen countless examples in the past few years of how a single reporter can be biased, incorrect, or even purposely deceitful; is using something like the Washington Post (not to pick on the Post) really as reliable as we make it out to be?

At the same time, if Wikipedia has proven anything, it's that it's remarkable just how accurate a crowd-based source of information can be. If Jimmy Wales had pitched Wikipedia to me, I would've said "good luck with that" and dismissed him as a kook. Now, say what you will about him, he's shown us that the wisdom of crowds isn't just the title of a best-seller.

I think we have to seriously re-evaluate the trust we put in sources and how we process information as a society. Dismissing Wikipedia based on a few bad examples isn't really any more fair than dismissing the Washington Post or New York Times for occasional bad reporting.

Hey Rand, I think we are going in circles here. Didn't we already clarify that you should NEVER trust a single source and always should VERIFY things via secondary sources or at least check the sources that are provided for the article to check if they actually state what they are used for as reference?

Only because Wikipedia says so, does it not have to be the truth

Only because the New York Times says so, does it not have to be the truth

Only because the Encyclopedia Britannica says so, does it not have to be the truth

Only because CNN broadcasted it, does it not have to be the truth

Only because the president said so, does it not have to be the truth

Only because your mom said so, does it not have to be the truth

Only because .....

You get the general idea, I hope :)

Wikipedia can be an excellent starting point to get a general idea about a subject and even more important, find sources with okay to excellent content to the subject. See Wikipedia as what it is and not what some people want it to be and you will realize that it is awfully helpful, in a good sense.

Thanks Pat, nice to see you around. I lurk often, but don't add much. Maybe that will change.

Sorry about the evil link, but of course we can have different opinions. I don't mind nofollow when it's used as an editorial "choice" a sort of non-vote for a site. I do hate it when it's used auto-magically by a CMS and sites as a whole. If a person doesn't have time to police their comments and filter out the crap, then perhaps they should pick up a new hobby and stop blogging.

Wiki on the other hand couldn't mind it's own store so they just made a blanket change on the site to nofollow all the links going out. What does upset me is that they are seen as the ultimate authority on just about every noun in Google yet they don't trust their own references enough to link to them. Wiki didn't create any of the knowledge they are given credit for being the authority on, they just compiled it, without giving any credit to the sources.

To me a hand edit like Rand did in his post, disavowing his links to a site mean a lot more and are in the right spirit of the directive. If Rand said that they are just to busy at SEOmoz to look at their content any more and nofollowed all external links except to his own properites, I'd write a plugin to nofollow him as well.

If you do decide to joing the movement and start to dofollow I suggest you don't sign up on any lists, as you'll become the target of many comment spammers.

Personally I nofollow other sites that nofollow all links as a policy, I'm not going to reward their lazy and irresponsible behavior with a link (as meek as it may be).

Dude, I just have to say one thing from the gut. I am really really really happy to see you here.

One of the main reasons I would love to see you here at SEOmoz more, is simply because the conversation here is so far beyond the level of the other places we haunt. I have a great admiration for your patience in the Google group, and I am telling you now, here at SEOmoz it is like sweet relief to be able to state openly and honestly your opinions and not be attacked or flamed.

I just hope you hang out here cause it is such a wonderful place for intelligent conversation. If I would have posted what I posted above in another venue, posted something that went against the "star" of the show (rand) I would have been flamed endlessly. But note the respectful conversation that is here in this thread.

Well stated by you both. Pat - relative to your statement regarding intelligent dialogue - I agree whole heartedly. It's nice to have a healthy and respectful debate where differing views are presented; to be able to "agree to disagree" and leave it at that.

On a separate note, the 5 thumbs up (and counting), you received on your initial post, is a testament to the positive contributions you've made and the respect you've earned over a far greater period of time than I've been around, and while it wasn't stated in my rebuttal as I was focused on challenging a specific comment you made - I do admire your passion for those that are less fortunate when it comes to education.

John - feedthebot is right we're a friendly bunch and from your comment above I see you can articulate an intelligent thought well so please do stay around and comment some more!

With regards this point - I agree with you. No one is disputing that wikipedia is a valuable source but there are certainly aspects of wikipedia, both with the site itself and how the search engines rank the site which is non-beneficial for everyone and this is what we're trying to get at and change. Of course Rand isn't really sugesting that we all nofollow our links to wikipedia - what he'd rather happen is for Google to stop placing so much damn emphasis on the site so that it didn't rank for queries where it has no place.

I have no issue with wikipedia ranking for a lot of terms but it just goes that one step too far.

In fact, in an ideal world - we'd see some of the technology Live is developing being deployed which would recognise the kind of query which deserves an informational answer as opposed to the kind of query which has a different intent (such as wanting to buy something or download something) and rank wikipedia or not accordingly. Once the intent of the query is known the search engines will be able to rank results much more effectively.

I hate it too when students and journalists cite Wikipedia. That's just laziness. At the very least, they should be heading to the references to check out and cite the vetted sources used for the article.

Commenting on talk pages, using site bulleting boards, and proposing preformatted citations is white hat stuff.

Wikipedians such as myself know you SEOs are out there. Just declare who you are and talk to us. We can be surprisingly cooperative. Provide encyclopedic content and you can get legit link love through line citations or CC-by-sa licensed images.

Okay, now the rough stuff.

"Hacking" Wikipedia is risky. Sure, it may be fun to play games, but everything that happens on the site is recorded in public logs that are accessible to anyone in the world. That includes journalists. What happens on the eighth most popular website in the world is newsworthy, especially if your clients are also newsworthy. News stories about businesses who've tried to manipulate the site are terrible PR for the business. Are you willing to take that risk with your own reputation and your client's, for a relatively small payout?

The honest ways to work with Wikipedia can be as advantageous as the dishonest ones. And now, while most of the business community doesn't understand the site very well, a lot of the legitimate opportunities are getting overlooked. The first businesses to understand where the real synergies are will gain the greatest benefit.

I can be reached through my Wikipedia userpage (type User talk:Durova in the search line) and am glad to answer questions about how to be white hat and smart at Wikipedia. I don't ask a cent for it, although if you think the advice is valuable you're welcome to make a contribution to Wikipedia.

Remember, Wikipedia is a nonprofit site run by volunteers whose mission is to provide everyone on the planet with a free encyclopedia of 50,000 articles in his or her native language. In just seven years roughly 1/3 of the world's population can access an encyclopedia that size or larger in one of the languages they speak. It ain't perfect, but it's pretty cool and incredibly effective for a foundation that has only 15 paid employees.

I tried to contact you, but the page is semi-protected. I'd like to hear what you have to say on this: "The honest ways to work with Wikipedia can be as advantageous as the dishonest ones. And now, while most of the business community doesn't understand the site very well, a lot of the legitimate opportunities are getting overlooked. The first businesses to understand where the real synergies are will gain the greatest benefit."

It sounds as though your comments are sincere and certainly generous. I would suggest that Wikipedia, the 30,000 plus viewers of SEOmoz and yourself might be better served if you took the opportunity to expound on your comments by posting to the membership blog here at SEOmoz, under the menu item - "Youmoz".

As a university student I want to add that very few students actually cite wikipedia in papers. We (students) know that professors specifically look to discredit wikipedia. In fact, it is very common for a professor to warn students against this practice the first day of class, especially if it is a freshman class.

However, not citing and not relying on wikipedia are two very different things. Many students will take information from wikipedia (it is just too easy) and simply not cite it. Many people argue that this is even worse.

Universities have been working hard to fight plagiarism. Every paper I turn in, no matter the length, must be turned in electronically solely so it can be run through anti-plagerism software. Professors instantly know if someone's paper is similar to wikipedia or a past students paper. The professors are very open about this procedure and even say what software they use (MOSS) and describe the reports the software prints out. The use of software varies depending on the subject. For example, my math professors don't use this software for obvious reasons (Every student is expected to answer every math problem using similar means) while my Computer Science and English professors rely on it extensively.

Thus is the great flexibility of technology. It is used at great length by "good guys" and "bad guys" alike.

I've had an art prof allow me use it, as well as have another prof let me use self-conducted interviews with foreign bloggers. Depends on the prof. Some of my profs here in law have explicitly disallowed it.

Personally, I find a lot of great, generally accurate info, though I hate to admit it. That said, I won't cite Wikipedia in a paper but rather Wikipedia's sources. Ditto online, cuz the damn place gets enough links as it is.

Unfortunately, it's also a tool - Wiki-Hackers who want information removed or who want to build up the "trust" of their own accounts will actually become spam investigators and reporters. One of the best ways to reach administrator level is actually to catch some of the "trusted" accounts that are actually other Wiki-Hackers, and thus the community of Wiki-Hackers is not on particularly good terms with one another. Turning in other hackers puts you above suspicion in a way that few other actions on Wikipedia can, and thus, it's one of the holy grails of the infiltrator-style hackers.

I agree with FTB - Wikipedia is important, but its not THAT important (I think free online schools and colleges are more important).

And I agree with Sean that Wikipedia's SERPs aren't going anywhere if a few hundred angry SEOs do a no-follow.

The only real way to bring Wikipedia down is to spam it out of relevance - make it a joke - and that would take a prolonged and orchestrated effort over several months to have even the slightest effect.

I remember when About.com was at the top of nearly every search result. So I guess its only a matter of time for Wikipedia.

I use Wikipedia to give me a high-level view of how basic things work - and for episode summaries of some of my favorite shows, or to catch up on some comic book superheroes that I don't have time to follow.

As for its academic worth? Not that much. The only thing useful about it is any .edu references you can find on the bottom of the page.

Having said all that - I do like the idea of Wikipedia - information brokering by the masses - and away from the hands of a few gray beards sitting in dusty rooms in ivory towers.

I guess its the anarchist in me that likes the anti-institutional ideal of Wikipedia.

And its the anarchist in me that likes the idea of taking down Wikipedia now that it has become an institution itself.

Rand, I recently caught a major SEO firm diddling nearly 100 articles. This was dealt with quietly. Wikipedia doesn't embarrass people for no reason. I spoke with the SEO boss, and convinced him to cut the crap.

The problem with sneaky strategies is that they work just long enough to risk a huge embarrassment when they fail. Can you or your clients take that risk?

I prefer to use above board methods for dealing with Wikipedia. If you have a problem with an article or a competitor, just go to the talk page and say who you are and what you want. You'd be surprise how well people react to honesty.

Here's what I don't understand about all of this, at least in my experience.

If you've actually got a quality piece of content, and you submit a link from the proper page on Wikipedia, there's VERY little chance of it being taken down.

EDIT: One way to do this is to look at the page on the topic that you're most interested in getting a link from. Find what you think are weaknesses in the article, create a piece of content that fills in the gap(s), and include an excerpt in the article itself, with a link to the full article on your site in the footnotes. This strikes me as a perfectly legitimate contribution to the Wikipedia community.

I tend to agree with Pat (feedthebot) on this one more than Rand--that might be a first. It strikes me that SEOs and companies who are Wiki-hacking are just being lazy and linking to crap content that is polluting an otherwise not terrible resource.

Yes, all of my clients are relatively small businesses, so the stakes aren't as high, but shouldn't those larger clients also have better content as a result of being able to spend more money on marketing?

I think Wikipedia remains an important marketing tool, because in addition to all of the scraper sites stealing wikicontent, often your site(s) or client(s) will be only one click away from the top spot in Google. But Pat's right, it's a far more important educational tool, especially for folks in 2nd and 3rd-world countries.

I edited an article dealing with economics to link to research I'd done - real, valuable content if ever there was some (economics doesn't have much of a linkbaitable atmosphere though, I'm afraid). Been through OECD data and made some serious analysis. Put the external link up. And had to fight repeatedly with some stubborn, self-important wikihead to keep the link there.

If you've actually got a quality piece of content, and you submit a link from the proper page on Wikipedia, there's VERY little chance of it being taken down.

If you link in the footnotes where no one/few people will leave wikipedia (seems to be the goal of a lot of its editors/policies) , they're cool. Ditto external links. But in the main content area like I did (it was appropriate to put it there, fyi)? No sir.

Fascinating post. Not sure which I like better - your new moniker "Wiki-Hacking" or your new word "Terrificly". I think the latter.

Every tactic you've described comes right out of the Mafia playbook - especially "The Talker" - this passive aggressive sinister mind reveling in criminal mischief. Of course, it's common knowledge that the Mafia doesn't exist, so that leaves me wondering if your post is simply the ramblings of yet another paranoid CEO? (Which btw, I highly recommend if you haven't already).

"Do all of these Wiki-Wars Really Matter? The most accurate answer is probably "it depends."

Rand, I think you're being overly kind when you say "your gut tells you a lot of people simply accept whatever Wikipedia says..." You mean people like, say...um.....GOOGLE?!!!

Is it possible that you're jaded by your good fortune of being surrounded by so many intelligentsia - the people that actually have the good sense to question "things", as opposed to the other 95% of society that would beleive anything written on pressed wood pulp?

Conversely, when you consider that when politicians speak you can't beleive half of what they say, 95% accuracy is pretty darn good! Of course, then there's the good old US Post Office. (Don't get me started).

Reminds me of that Seinfeld episode when Newman tells Jerry he didn't get the coveted transfer to Hawaii. "They knew it wasn't me doing my route. Too many people got their mail! Close to 80%. Nobody from the post office has ever cracked the 50% barrier! It's like the 3-minute mile!

Funny, I was just talking to a friend today who worked in a university history department. People wrote that the Boxer rebellion was about Muhammad Ali leading blacks against the US government in protest to the Vietnam war. [For readers who don't know, it was a war in China turning on the issue of opium.] The paper was based on Wikipedia.

It's an interesting point in time for wikipedia. Recently I made a change in wikipedia to reflect the name change of one of my company's products. I created a completely transparent username and was completely transparent with reasons for my edit. My edit got on the WikiProject SpamList, even though I was providing accuracy of information, and was not exploitive in any way.

It would have been much easier to create an alias and make the edit that way, thereby being virtually undetected, instead I chose the moral highground, representing who I am and what I am there for.

My suggestion to wikipedia would be to open the communication channels for companies and site owners who are impacted by articles, in turn creating a much more healthy and vibrant community.

Rather than using the biggest brush available in their noble attempts at spam prevention and abuse of the community.

On my personal experience I can tell you that Wikipedia Sucks, is really hard to see who is removing your links and why, in my case I have a huge site about Dominican Republic Culture, my site was linked from 25 pages in wikipedia, but now I see that only 11 pages are linking to me.

The pages that have the links from wikipedia are well done pages, with a lot of userfull information.

I mean my competence is removing my incoming links and I don´t know how to stop that.

I also admit to be a person who has been a long time spam fighting editor. Along the way have I spammed Wiki of course a few times to get my point of view across (probably for every 100 spam fighting 1 spamming). Wikipedia has so many different ways to be infiltrated. Unless you are an admin, regular editors simply don't have enough power or communication with admins to make the place a true utopia. I have not been to it for months now since the nofollow. The whole thing is a joke. And yes my blog nofollows wiki.

Comment edited due to popular demand below. Wiki-dnapping will forever be known wi-kidnapping. Thanks guys.

Well, the auto-insertion of nofollow tags into a blog post should be rather straight forward, a simple matter of using regex to find any wikipedia links and insert the nofollow tag into them. Hell, Jeff should be able to whip a simple script up rather quickly :)

It'd make interesting link bait too - I'm sure there are many SEOers out there who would like to 'get one back' at wikipedia via a wordpress plugin or something similar (perhaps a plugin that allows you to customise the URLs that get nofollowed?)

Another, most subtle (devious?) way to get better general usage would be to include it as a minor 'feature' in a more general plugin that a wider audience would use. For irony bonus, perhaps an anti-spam plugin? :p

Interesting article, but a bit flawed too. I am actually for the imbalance created by the nofollow used on all outbound Wikipedia links. I explained my reasons before and after I broke the news that nofollow was actually enabled (for the wrong reasons unfortunately).

Your WordPress plugin to nofollow all links to Wikipedia exists already since a few days after Wikipedia announced that they nofollow their links, courtesy of a guy who commented on the story I referred to above.

Quote: "While lots of experienced Wiki-Hackers love to share their favorite stories of manipulating the site, very few of the truly quality editors are A) ever going to meet me at a party or go get some drinks with me at a conference bar, or B) boast about the terrific article they created about 70s-style tube socks as fashion accessories."

Middle severe memory loss eh Rand? Okay, we missed each other pretty much at SES SJ and you were not able to get me the beer you owed me (link disclosure tip), but I was having a drink with your mom instead, which made me consider it even :) Yeah, I talk about my contributions and achievements and failures.

So if people fouund a way to exploit the Red Cross or some other volunteer-staffed charitable organization for personal or businees gain at the expense of the organization, would you post that on the web too?

Wow, I am saddened to see so many grown up men discuss wikipedia or what I like to refer to as wikishitia, as it has precipitated an amateur, lowly, pseudo-historical, pseudo-intellectual, bureaucratic, obtuse and fascistic vanguard devoted to the desecration of knowledge, truth and accuracy. I cannot bear to read anything on wikipedia that pertains to my country, religion, culture, profession, interests etc. as it is often a painful and neverending phantasmagoric nightmare. I know first hand that wikipedia is essentially run by an utterly misinformed and incompetent mob composed almost entirely of OCD retards. In reading an article about my country, I learned, unbeknownst to me, that I speak a language called &^&%$$. Funnily enough, this language does NOT exist in my country, but hey, who am I to challenge a demented linguistics student who has probably never set foot in the Mediterranean? To the man above who believes that wikipedia is benefitting millions of people by educating them ( I cannot help but laugh in despair), I say to you- "you will RUE the day" when knowledge and truth cease to exist. For, if anything can count as knowledge, if anyone and everyone is allowed to interpret history and apply labels carelessly, labels, history, culture and knowledge cease to exist. All that we will be left with, and in many ways are already left with, are the nightmarish delusions of an incompetent and in many cases deranged fascist cabal of retards. Wikipedia is insanity manifest, it is a disease, symptomatic of our world's degeneration and ruin. In the same way that shooting rampages have almost become common, the writing of history, culture, science etc. has now become the task of a handful (because NOT everyone can contribute to wikishitia, that is, not everyone's contributions will last) of unqualified and might I add, BIASED (also, lifeless) contributors and admins. Death to wikipedia and the cult of IGNORANCE! I would rather be patronized by an elderly and white bearded gentleman that is knowledgeable and wise than a mob of idiotic fools.

Would like to know your thoughts on wiki.com -- the for profit wiki environment of wikimedia. Let me know if you have written or do write a blog in the future on what's going on with the for profit side.

I have been on Wiki since 05, and don't edit very much. I have found that people go to my home page and edit it, as it they are hoping to get credit for that. One person thinks that I can't have lived in the 6 0r 8 countries that I did. I consider a year in one place living there, all after 18th birthday. Sometimes people try to be annoying, I think.

Apologies for the posting problem. My user space saw a spate of vandalism yesterday. I've freed it up, and anyone who registers a Wikipedia account and sets up an e-mail address can also use the e-mail link at the left column of my user page.

It's very late. Thanks for the suggestions and I'll follow up in the morning.

I think that serious concern needs to be paid to the fact that Durova is currently up for recall for abuses against individuals and businesses. She's giving you advice as to how to work with Wikipedia, and she's really a very dangerous person to be using as a source.

The joint Arbitration Committee case against her and JeHochman is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration#Durova_and_Jehochman

JeHochman was questioned just last week for similar abuses: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive324#Bizarre_behavior_from_Jehochman

What is up with the SEO community that you keep inviting these two as spokespersons? Aren't you supposed to be sharp, hip, marketing people? Up on the latest info?

There are many other people who don't have a singular paranoid focus on catching evildoers, who could advise you on procedure.

The only value in talking to these two is schmoozing so they don't nail you with some false accusation (these two are famous for this, read the links on the Wikipedia Arbitration board by the Community). But they won't be held accountable for their actions, because Arbcom is rigged. See the Arbcom reaction to this debacle.

My guess is that you (Anon Wikipedian) are most likely playing out the scenario of the "bad mouther" above. Knowing Durova & Jon in person, they're truly dedicated to the project and above the influence of corruption. If they've been accused of abuses, it's almost certainly by those who are playing the manipulation game. Sad to see, but as I noted in the post, this sort of thing isn't as uncommon as one might hope :(

Hey "Anonymous Wikipedian", Did you actually read the discussion at the administrator noticeboard about Jehochmans behavior?

I did and it reinforces my good opinion about Jonathan who I also met for the first time in person at SES San Jose this year.

The only "bad thing" you can say about him is the fact that he does not hide his identity like most other Wikipedian (just like you do) to use the anonymity to defame and attack others without the fear of repercussions.

Avoiding a possible backlash online or worse, in real life, if an attorney letter arrives at your place to inform you about the legal action that were taken against your defaming and untrue statements that are a clear case of libel. Notice that I said IF and not that you actually did it.

This anonymity and the abuse that comes with it, is one of the biggest problems with Wikipedia. There is no reason for the need of anonymity. In cases were it would be a problem apply other things like WP:COI etc. anyway and should prevent such edits in the first place.

It seems like the obvious way for Wikipedia to fight spam is to implement a user based flagging and voting system, similar to many email systems. Of course people will try to game it, but there will be fewer of them and many more of the casual users they'll have to fight against. The voting system would also be open to automated attacks, but then patterns on those would emerge as well and as a whole it'd become more sophisticated.

There are several types of "cases" they could set up:

For a link inclusion / Against a link inclusion.
For an edit / Against an edit.

and so on. The most difficult position to fill in this model is the arbitrator. That'd likely have to be someone who isn't a volunteer.

fair point, I do occasionaly worry about the issue of popular myth and urban legends with regards to something that maybe taken for gospel truth and historical fact. Then again that was an interesting point with the wiki ID lookup, where people worried that CIA folk where editing wikipedia entries - as far as i understood it some of them were rather informative updates.

It's true that wiki-hacking in its various guises will continue as long as it exists - simply because the amount of traffic that can be generated from a wiki link is so huge. It may not boost your PR, but I'm sure most webmasters would take traffic over PR any day!

On your point about "spite", you should be aware that while businesses removing slabs of negative information about themselves will indeed often be regarded as vandals, businesses (and individuals too) who contact Wikipedia through official channels have all of their concerns taken seriously. Hack jobs are regarded just as poorly as puff pieces in the Wikipedia culture.

Your readers should also be aware that with the techniques for identifying the origin of malicious edits ever improving, the risk of such "spiteful" edits being tracked to them is high, and they should consider the PR consequences that this may have on their business before using these kinds of strategies.

A lot of my authored content on "Landing Page" originally attributed to me with footnotes and links now no longer contain the footnotes or the links as they seemingly were removed by competitors. Note that I did not provide the content myself originally and I don't know who did. Still, I noticed the links missing after seeing a drop-off of traffic and checking out the page.

I don't t have the time or energy to battle with the Wikipedia powers that be but if it's happening to me you can be sure it's happening all over Wikipedia and potentially it has legal ramifications should folks be inclined to claim the copyright.

I've made Wikipedia edits myself, though much more garden variety. I used to do it a lot more, particularly when I had something helpful to contribute. Adding other sites besides your own is a useful tactic as well, as that way you're not being entirely self-promotional.

The interest for me personally was in the traffic, which I liked in, of and for itself.

Thanks for sharing these various tactics Rand!

BTW, you didn't finish your sentence:

The Bad Mouther - This particular Wiki Hacker got caught by another editor and in order to save himself, dug through every edit his accusor had ever [........???......]

(Oh, and while I have your attention, I still haven't gotten a response from you or Jeff on whether I earned a premium membership last month?... Feel free to delete this part of the comment if/when you get back to me.)

Final thing I thought I'd mention: if you can't rank for it, you can get W to rank for it and slide some links to yourself from the W page. Consider it a SERP monopolization effort. Plus the fact of getting more links to a page from around Wikipedia (gradually, over time, making edits to the page equally gently) can help earn trust.

I don't really ever comment on seomoz artiles, but I made the exception here. This is absolutely effin brilliant. I've played with wikipedia before, but without too much effort or success. I shrugged and moved on. I'm kind of sad about that now, reading about what might have(or might) be.

Rand, so glad to see you posting on this topic. Manipulation is an understatement. In my industry for example there are four national organizations that represent the profession. Only one organization gets referenced on the page representing the industry's primary keyword and all attempts to add any of the other three get deleted.

What appears like an innocent page is in actuality a mix of manipulated content that promotes a single group's agenda.

I wonder how many other nonprofit organizations don't see the light of day as a result of tactics such as I've seen on wikipedia?

I must admit i've not played with it too much as the edits and deletes posed too much of a risk as a waste of time. However, what I did find was interesting, I wrote a profile of my old company (200 years old company) but it was deleted and I was told it was advertising, fair enough, no complaint there.

So what I did was actually to write the article on the company as if it was part of my history degree, impartial, factual and not in any way promoting. This edit was accepted and has stayed unchanged. I'd like to think that if more people went that way and did honest, unbiased pieces we'd all be able to appreciate wikipedia more.

Not that its likely however, sadly too many places on the internet are ruled by emotions rather than rational thought.

I've been a member of Wikipedia for a couple of years now. While I do some more "administrative" stuff on there like monitor my hometown's page and revert edits for people that write such things as "____ stinks!" and other various little edits, I do try to get a page up for any of our notable clients just so it can help with the first-page domination for that company name's search on any search engine.

However, in the grand scheme of things, I find that Wikipedia isn't so much an "educational" resource than it is an "entertaining" one. Obviously, when information is so easily manipulated and everyone can have a say in the way a sentence or block of info is said or included, information will be biased in some way, shape or form. One of the entries I monitor is the one with REAL ID. Of course, this is a huge issue and some people are incredibly against it while others are not. These "edit wars" happen where one person thinks REAL ID is a bad thing and includes a link to a site... then another person removes it, says it's "vandalism" or the site isn't "notable", and an impending quibble happens on someone's talk page. Ugh.

That's why I never go to Wikipedia for any sort of educational reason; there's just too much personal bias to take entries at face-value. I go for entertainment. Case in point - a random search on Wikipedia spurred a weekend trip I planned to go visit ghost towns across Oregon with my girlfriend! Or I thought it was interesting to read the entry about the steepest street in the world.

Sorry to re-post this, but I think it got lost in the earlier comments and in all the Wiki excitement no one answered - poor me :(

I've been wondering if the nofollow on Wiki articles devalues that Wiki-links metric on your Page Strength tool?

You could argue that the 'halo-effect' of being talked about in Wiki, with all its unknown, subtle, almost peripheral benefits still makes it a valid metric to include.

Or you could say that it's now just another mention of your website and services, no different to an extended version of a trusted directory such as DMOZ albeit with more content.

What do you reckon?

On a side note, I admit to being one of those people who go straight to Wikipedia to look something up, and only if something smells fishy do I check other sources and dig deeper. I'm aa example of exactly what Rand is prophesying.